Editorial October 15, 1938 Issue

"One day ... as a thousand years"

George Shaw Cook

In her definition of "year," on page 598 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mary Baker Eddy includes the Scriptural statement (II Peter 3:8), "One day is with the Lord as a thousand years," and follows it with the sentence, "One moment of divine consciousness, or the spiritual understanding of Life and Love, is a foretaste of eternity." "Eternity," she continues in the same definition (ibid., p. 599), "is God's measurement of Soul-filled years." To the extent, then, that it rightly may be said that there is time, it should be understood that it does not relate to anything finite; for on page 584 of Science and Health Mrs. Eddy says, "Mind measures time according to the good that is unfolded."

To the human sense of reckoning, time appears to be an endless succession of days, months, and years, but this sense of time is mortal and therefore erroneous. This mortal sense of time may bring with it either the belief that time passes quickly, "as a watch in the night," or that it passes so slowly that it is endured with ennui. Neither of these beliefs is in accord with the foregoing definition of time as being measured by "the good that is unfolded."

The limited sense of time frequently brings with it a belief of hurry and worry. There is not enough time in which to finish the work in hand, one may believe. Or, if one is to finish his task on time, he must hurry. In such circumstances it is well to know that in the absolute sense there is no such thing as time, because eternity is the divine and ever-present fact. If one under the pressure of many duties to perform will but realize that he exists in eternity, it is obvious that he will not be hurried; neither will he be worried about lack of time, of that which does not exist.

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